Madden 11 Decision: Maybe Next Year - Kushmir's Blog

Kushmir's Blog

Madden 11 Decision: Maybe Next Year

Posted on September 27, 2010 at 10:22 AM.

Well, that didn't take long.

For the record, I knew about 48 hours after the patch that it just wasn't to be. In the end it was many things, too little defense (yes--even after the latest patch) too many 30-second 80-yard drives, too many instances of playing The Saints, Colts and Jets, too many QBs completing passes from their backsides, too many broken promises, too little Fairplay, too much Donny Moore, too many nano-blitzes, too few punts on 4th down, too many 60 yard field goals, too many broken tackles, too many injured and suspended players on the field, too little football, too many loopholes and too many excuses when you're the only football game on the market.

"I told you so!" some will say "you have to stop playing online to enjoy the game." Sorry. Not good enough. Online is the future, and as a result, Madden's future isn't very bright. In one of my last online games I played a Cowboys fan who abused the arrow route (the one that looks like this: >) his online record was 70-24, so he obviously was pretty good. I decided to find out, and countered with my own arrow route out of shotgun. Sadly, I ran the same play (or variations of it with audibles) for more than 3 quarters and there wasn't anything he could do. While two turnovers contributed to my win, the beauty of the arrow route and other imbalanced aspects of gameplay(The Arrow is guaranteed to be open against man and zone defenses for a 5-6 yard gain) is really in the fact that if you center your offense around it, the attention it draws opens up EVERYTHING. You'd think that this was Tiburon's first foray into online play, not their EIGHTH. They know full well that the win-at-all-costs CHEESE mentality is rampant online, yet they release a game every year that is horribly unbalanced.

"It just wasn't the same" I told a friend of mine after patch 1.03 dropped. Even though scores dropped from the cluster-you-know-what we got on release day, I was largely numb. The competition and chess-match was gone. It was just a race to see who could abuse one of the countless gameplay loopholes the best. I'm an online player--sadly i get no satisfaction from playing franchise and beating the hapless AI. I've got to get my fix beating another living, breathing person who knows if i ran the same slant to get first downs on four previous plays? i'll probably do it again.

And I am NUMB. sure, I wasted 60 dollars on a game i played less than two weeks (i played for 3 days after release) but it was worth knowing that Tiburon will probably never be able to deliver a solid brand of virtual football. Sure, we'll give them another shot in three years or so, but our standards have skyrocketed and have to be exceeded now, and they've never shown the ability to to exceed. Madden is a casual i-just-beat-the-Saint-48-to-zero type of game, and i've finally accepted it.

If we're even to consider playing the game again it has to have all the things (too numerous to mention here) that they've always neglected to add. SADLY, THAT WON'T HAPPEN. So, now we'll turn our sights to NBA 2K11--a real sports sim, and one of the games I can actually play offline despite being a much bigger NFL Fan than NBA. You can find my copy of Madden 11 at Gamestop for whatever they're charging for used games nowadays. WE'RE DONE.

Comments

# 1 Sausage @ Sep 27

Nice write up. I enjoy the game, but no somethings should be better.

# 2 bigsmallwood @ Sep 27

I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, until the Gamestop part lol. Try to sell online, you will at least get more $$$ back than GS.

On a more serious note, I am very stumped and disappointed by this years Madden (much like the entire next gen effort.) and am going to look to get rid of mine as well. After the patches and countless bugs and lies we have been fed, my Madden days are done for the time being. I am sad, because if my NFL 2K5 stops working, then I have no NFL game to play except for Madden. Oh well, NBA 2K11 is on the horizon and I can't wait to play it!

# 3 Kushmir @ Sep 27

i hear ya brother, i know Gamestop is going to offer me 20 bucks (and then turn around and charge 54.99 for it) but i'm ok with it. i'm ready for a real sports sim--madden's a casual game. and for the record? i had alot better time WATCHING the nfl yesterday than playing it on my PS3. very few similarities between the two, by the way...

# 4 Kushmir @ Sep 27

I wish you the best of luck with that Todem-i really do. as long as you have a group of like-minded cheese-free individuals you'll be fine. by that's at the root of my problem, unfortunately. We shouldn't have to resort to "house rules" not to see relentless exploiting of the AI.